Skyrim's Todd Howard: Actors come to us

Video games have penetrated "mass consciousness" to the such an extent that Hollywood actors now approach developers asking to do voice over work.

According to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim developer Todd Howard, agents now encourage their clients to work on video games - whereas before they weren't considered "cool" enough.

"Video gaming overall have reached this level of mass consciousness," he said last week at Bethesda's video game showcase.

"And with a lot of these actors, there is a cool factor now to doing a video game. It's not about the money. It's about, 'It's really cool and my agent tells me it's going to be good for me now instead of bad for me.'

"You had an actor say, 'This is great! I want to do it.' The agent said, 'You don't want to be in a video game.' Now the agent goes, 'You should do it. Now everyone plays them. They love them. This is really cool. Let's do it.'